You may have seen a tweet or two over the last month about a little project I’ve been working on: building a DIY beauty dish. The full details and how-to on my design are ready to go, but first, here’s a look at a few examples shot with the homebrew light modifier for speedlights.
Photographer’s Notes:
In the above examples (and the one below), I’ve used the DIY beauty dish with a Nikon SB-900 speedlight, for which the dish was specifically built.
Overall, I’m very much liking the quality of light from this DIY beauty dish, which splits the difference somewhere between a bare bulb and a softbox or umbrella.
End Notes:
Stay tuned for the design details and how-to for this DIY beauty dish, the Mark II design. Chris and I are calling it the Chinatown Special.
This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 9:41 pm and is filed under Portrait Photography and tagged with ambient, beauty dish, diy, flash, light, Portrait Photography, speedlight, strobist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Portrait examples shot with my DIY beauty dish design, perfected with @chrisowyoung, and the Nikon SB-900: http://is.gd/6yYZo
RT @toddowyoung: Portrait examples shot with my DIY beauty dish design, perfected with @chrisowyoung, & the Nikon SB-900: http://is.gd/6yYZo
RT@toddowyoung Portrait examples shot with my DIY beauty dish design, perfected with @chrisowyoung, and the Nikon SB-900: http://is.gd/6yYZo
Haha Chinatown special
love the third one.. It’s so lovely
Hey Jessie,
It’s been a long time, thanks for the comment, I appreciate it. Hope your photography is going well.
That third shot is from my model/assistant/friend Allyssa. It was a very overcast day when we shot, so it was the perfect atmosphere to shoot near wide-open with the 70-200mm f/2.8 and balance the ambient with the light from the beauty dish.
Really cool, Ive been thinking of building my own recently, I think I’ll wait for your plans to be released!
Love the 5 shot, awesome depth of field!
Hey Martin,
Thanks for the comment. This beauty dish is relatively easy to build, though you will need a Dremel and a power drill, since the main dish is made of metal. Other than that, it’s an easy build, I think. The hardest part is probably waiting for the paint to dry before using it.
RT@toddowyoung Portrait examples shot with my DIY beauty dish design, perfected with @chrisowyoung, and the Nikon SB-900: http://is.gd/6yYZo
my master ! RT @toddowyoung: Portrait examples shot with DIY beauty dish design @chrisowyoung, and the Nikon SB-900: http://is.gd/6yYZo
DIY Beauty Dish Examples: Portraits http://ff.im/-evm2e
sweet ‘Brosyoungs’ portrait !
Hey Paul!
Ha, thanks. Chris and I shot that super quick. We had two Softliters on either side (SB-600s), an SB-900 in back for the spot on the background, and of course the DIY beauty dish up front, camera right.
the “Chinatown Special”
LOL!
nice ;)
can’t wait to see the DIY :)
Hi Pat,
Thanks, I think you’re going to dig the design. Stay tuned.
I guess I either don’t read your blog or his blog enough but I just KNEW you guys were related! hahaha
Hi Doug,
Yeah, Chris is my brother.
These are Awesome!!!
Oh, and of course, ROCK IT JASON!!!
Hey Simon, thanks for the comment. Jason was a great subject and really jumped into it.
I swear, Todd, you could take pictures of rocks and I’d still love it. Seems like this beauty dish is a fine addition to your arsenal. Way to show DJ and Allyssa’s personalities. Good people. Maybe I’ll see you at a show again if St. Louis ever gets any good ones. Haha.
Hey Chris, it’s been too long, thanks for the kind words. Glad to hear you think the shots of DJ and Allyssa ring true. See you in the front row soon.
I’d love to see a with beauty dish and without side by side comparison :)
Kylie,
Thanks for the suggestions. I will see what I can do – most of these shots just used the beauty dish as the key light balanced with ambient, so do you mean a photo of ambient-only and then a shot with the beauty dish as the key?
Let me see if I can put together that comparison for you, and let me know if there’s anything else you’d want to see.
Probably not that soon, unless you’re planning on shooting any Chicago shows. Haha. I don’t think I’ll be reunited with the wonderful Pageant barricade till Switchfoot on the 15th. (Which by the way, you’d be foolish not to shoot. Jon Foreman, the SF frontman is an incredibly dynamic and photogenic performer.)
No problem, and yes, Jason is awesome; we used to work together.
[...] You can see more samples of the Chinatown Special Mark II here. [...]
Guys, this is really cool! I will try to DIMyself for sure!!!
Thanks!
Greetings from Russia!
Todd, great project and wonderful results. One of the most pleasing aspects: the fact that you’re so diligent in answering the folks that comment here! I think that’s a wonderful touch and one you don’t see too often. Very classy.
Cheers — Brock
Those are some very cool example shots and the dish itself looks cool. I don’t know if there is a Chinese kitchen supply store nearby but I think I can find reasonable substitutes.
Hi Bernie,
Thanks for the kind words. Really, any restaurant supply store should certainly have the mixing bowl. A small metal plate might possibly be more difficult to find, but I’m sure you can find something suitable in the 6-8″ diameter range.
Wow, this is one of the coolest ones I’ve seen. Well done and thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the kind words, Ned.
[...] For sample band promos and portraits lit using the Chinatown Special, check out these examples. [...]
Hi Todd, I searched the Thesaurus for some superlatives that hadn’t been used here, and failed. BTW, don’t know how you get time to do this, given your hectic schedule. Definitely going to have a go at making one to fit a studio flash. One question: I would intuitively use a convex return plate to get a better spread. Is this an issue or not? Incidentally, my son is a musician and I will try to learn from your examples. The light is so crisp and edgy compared to soft box light. (Can’t afford to fly you out to South Africa!).
Hey Roy,
Thanks very much for the kind words.
I tried various combinations of the reflector position, but I think you’ll find that you’ll need to test and tweak your design. Good luck! Would love to visit South Africa some day.
Hey Todd what size in terms of inches is the beauty dish that you made. Looks around 16 inches?
Thanks,
Arnold
Hi Arnold, the dish is 18″ in diameter.
just wondering if you could show some of the setups using the dish in the pictures above?
Id like to know what settings you use for your speedlight. Like manual or auto. Ive made my own thanks to your design using two stainless steel dishes but find that the recycle time is somewhat slow. I use Canon flashes and I really dont want to increase the ISO to allow for a faster recycle time. Any advice on this one.
Regards
Roger
Let me repeat my comment. Id like to know what setting you used on your speedlight-manual or auto.? I use Canon EX flashes and I find the recycle time pretty slow. And I dont want to use a higher ISO to allow a faster recycle time. Any advice on this one. And thanks for the design. Very useful indeed especially in this part of the world where we pay through the nose for photo acccessories.
Regards
Roger
Hey Roger,
The beauty dish does take a fair amount of light, so I am generally shooting at 1/8 and above. In bright light, 1/1 is necessary, but you can get away with much less when balancing dimmer light.
[...] Schicker Selbstbau-Beauty-Dish mit erstaunlichen Ergebnissen http://ishootshows.com/2010/02/23/diy-beauty-dish-video-tutorial/ http://ishootshows.com/2010/01/18/diy-beauty-dish-examples-portraits/ [...]
any suggestions for using your diy with the Vivatar 285hv. Thinking about playing with making one of these.
The Vivitar 285HV would work just fine – you’ll just need to cut the hole to size for the flash head.